Full Throttle
By Deniz Tek
Picador-Pan Macmillan Australia
Deniz Tek’s autobiographical “Full Throttle” hits the bookshelves at a time when “Retaliate First”, the definitive story of his most storied band, Radio Birdman, hasn’t yet made it to the remainder bins at Big W. It joins photographer George Munoz’s lavish coffee table effort, “When The Birdman Flew”, and Chris Masuak’s “Faith and Practice in Bedlam” which are still available in various places.
And while Your ABC still won’t screen “Descent Into The Maelstrom” (still the best rock documentary made in this country) it can be streamed on Apple TV or Prime.
So it’s a crowded dancefloor on which to do The Moving Change.
Wisely, Tek has wisely taken a different tack. Rather than fixate on Birdman, “Full Throttle” tracks through its author’s time in military aviation and emergency medicine and casts a light on his solo bands and side projects. Appearances by the Radios are pre-flight or involve the final line-up and are fleeting. There’s no aggro and any contestable turf is avoided.
Don’t let that put you off. There’s enough meat on this story’s bones to maintain the interest of even a casual fan. The breadth of “Full Throttle” is an obvious strategy to reach a broader market.
How many times can you re-tell the same Radio Birdman stories anyway? It’s a rhetorical question but it’s one that a prospective publisher would have asked. All of which makes the following aside relevant.
Twenty-something years ago, I worked with Tek to lightly edit four sample chapters that he’d penned. Sydney graphic artist Murray Bennett created some mocked up pages using images that hadn’t made it into Vivien Johnson’s long out-of-print, university thesis-turned-into-a-biography, “Radio Birdman”. The concept was a coffee table book, light on word count but full of impactful images.
Still outside the industry mainstream, a literary pitch on behalf of a Radio Birdman member was regarded as promoting a visit by an alien from another planet. Even the band’s subsequent entry into the ARIA Hall of Fame wouldn’t have granted admission to the club.
The book was pitched to a good two-dozen targets. Most publishers didn’t bother answering. One from a big-name publishing house wrote back, saying: “I didn’t know Radio Birdman fans could read.” Well fuck you too, buddy. To my eternal shame, I spilt coffee over the rejection letter and lost it before I had the commonsense to put it in a frame and send it straight to the pool room. Dr Tek’s interest moved on.
A couple of those sample chapters are recognisable in the published version although the deft hand of an editor is apparent in smoothing the narrative and making it flow. Tek’s clipped, economical language is intact - like guitar choppy riffs. It’s easy to read and if you stumble over the terms for various medical procedures or have no idea about an A4 or an F-14, the terminology is translated.
Birdman tragics should be at ease with the book’s aim of catching the attention of a broader audience to draw them into the maelstrom. A means to an end. The story is told chronologically, and parts will be familiar to many if not most people reading this.
The road tales with Tek’s US band The Last Of The Bad Men (aka the mercurial skate twins Art and Steve Godoy) will be enlightening for anyone under the misapprehension that it’s a glamorous life.
The insights into Deniz’s brief spell guesting with DKT-MC5 throw a spotlight on the tensions few people outside the band’s inner circle knew about. I clearly recall those Sydney shows and how Rob Younger aced it on two songs at the Gaelic Club, and Tek’s playing being a red-hot poker up Brother Wayne’s arse as they swapped licks at Selinas and spurred each other on. It’s also clear that reviving New Race with Wayne Kramer for a European tour was an idea that was never going to fly.
In other highliughts, if you’d been an honorary Stooge for a handful of songs at a tribute gig in honour of Ron Asheton, you’d write about it too. None other than Jim Osterberg has endorsed the book.
The concept of bean counters being allowed to run the NSW health system in the mid-2000s is exposed for the crock that it still is and is presented as a straw that broke the back of Tek’s Accident & Emergency career.
Disclosure: The reviewer manages Chris Masuak.
